The Argus Pheasant Part 18

"That I am their friend."

The old sea captain stared at his ex-mate.

"You're jokin'," he declared.

"I was never more serious in my life," Peter Gross a.s.sured gravely.

"Then you're a d.a.m.n' fool," Roaring Rory a.s.serted. "Yes, sir, a d.a.m.n'

fool. I didn't think it of ye, Peter."

"It will take time, but I believe I see my way," Peter Gross replied quietly. He explained his plan briefly, and as he described how he expected to win the confidence and support of the hillmen, Roaring Rory became calmer.

"Mebbe you can do it, Peter, mebbe you can do it," he conceded dubiously. "But that devil of an Ah Sing has a long arm, and by the bye, I'd keep indoors after sundown if I were you."

"But this isn't getting me the man I need," Peter Gross pointed out.

"Can you recommend any one, captain?"

Roaring Rory squared back in his chair.

"I hain't got the lat.i.tude and longitude of this-here proposition of yours figured just yet," he replied, producing a plug of tobacco and biting off a generous portion before pa.s.sing it hospitably to his visitor. "Just what kind of a man do you want?"

Peter Gross drew his chair a few inches nearer the captain's.

"What I want," he said, "is a man that I can trust--no matter what happens. He doesn't need to know seamanship, but he's got to be absolutely square, a man the sight of gold or women won't turn. He has to be a soldier, an ex-army officer, and a bush-fighter, a man who has seen service in the jungle. A man from the Philippines would just fill the bill. He has to be the sort of a man his men will swear by. And he has to have a clean record."

Roaring Rory grunted. "Ye don't want nothin', do ye? I'd recommend the Angel Gabriel."

"There is such a man," Peter Gross insisted. "There always is. You've got to help me find him, captain."

Rouse scratched his head profoundly and squinted hard. By and bye a big grin overspread his features.

"I've got a nevvy," he announced, "who'd be crazy to be with ye. He's only seventeen, but big for his age. He's out on my plantation now. Hold on," he roared as Peter Gross attempted to interrupt. "I'm comin' to number twenty-five. This nevvy has a particular friend that's with him now out to the plantation. 'Cordin' to his log, this chap's the very man ye're lookin' for. Was a captain o' volunteer infantry and saw service in the Philippines. When his time run out he went to Shanghai for a rubber-goods house, and learned all there is to know about c.h.i.n.ks. He's the best rifle shot in Java. An' he can handle men. He ain't much on the brag order, but he sure is all there."

"That is the sort of a man I have been looking for," Peter Gross observed with satisfaction.

"He's worth lookin' up at any rate," Captain Rouse declared. "If you care to see him and my nevvy, you're in luck. They're comin' back to-night. They had a little business here, so they run down together and will bunk with me. I expect them here at nine o'clock, and if ye're on deck I'll interduce you. What d'ye say?"

"I knew you wouldn't fail me, captain," Peter Gross replied warmly.

"I'll be here."

The shrill whistle of a coaster interrupted Peter Gross's melancholy reflections. He recollected with a start that it must be near the time he had promised to be at Captain Rouse's cottage. Leaving the wharves, he ambled along the main traveled highway toward the business district until overtaken by a belated victoria whose driver he hailed.

The cool of evening was descending from the hills as the vehicle turned into the street on which Captain Rouse lived. It was a wide, tree-lined lane, with oil lamps every six or seven hundred feet whose yellow rays struggled ineffectually to banish the somber gloom shed by the huge ma.s.ses of foliage that shut out the heavens. Feeling cramped from his long ride and a trifle chill, Peter Gross suddenly decided to walk the remainder of the distance, halted his driver, paid the fare, and dismissed him. Whistling cheerily, a rollicking chanty of the sea to which his feet kept time, he walked briskly along.

Cutting a bar of song in the middle, he stopped suddenly to listen.

Somewhere in the darkness behind him someone had stumbled into an acacia hedge and had uttered a stifled exclamation of pain. There was no other sound, except the soughing of the breeze through the tree-tops.

"A drunken coolie," he observed to himself. He stepped briskly along and resumed his whistling. The song came to an abrupt close as his keen ears caught a faint shuffling not far behind, a shuffling like the sc.r.a.ping of a soft-soled shoe against the plank walk. He turned swiftly, ears p.r.i.c.ked, and looked steadily in the direction that the sound came from, but the somber shadows defied his searching glance.

"Only coolies," he murmured, but an uneasy feeling came upon him and he quickened his pace. His right hand involuntarily slipped to his coat-pocket for the pistol he customarily carried. It was not there. A moment's thought and he recollected he had left it in his room.

As he reached the next street-lamp he hesitated. Ahead of him was a long area of unlighted thoroughfare. Evidently the lamp-lighter had neglected his duties. Or, Peter Gross reflected, some malicious hand might have extinguished the lights. It was on this very portion of the lane that Captain Rouse's cottage stood, only a few hundred yards farther.

He listened sharply a moment. Back in the shadows off from the lane a piano tinkled, the langorous Dream Waltz from the Tales of Hoffman. A lighted victoria clattered toward him, then turned into a brick-paved driveway. Else not a sound. The very silence was ominous.

Walking slowly, to accustom his eyes to the gloom, Peter Gross left the friendly circle of light. As the shadows began to envelop him he heard the sound of running feet on turf. Some one inside the hedge was trying to overhaul him. He broke into a dog-trot.

A low whistle cut the silence. Leaping forward, he broke into a sprint.

Rouse's cottage was only a hundred yards ahead--a dash and he would be there.

A whistle from in front. A like sound from the other side of the lane.

The stealthy tap-tapping of feet, sandaled feet, from every direction.

For a moment Peter Gross experienced the sensation of a hunted creature driven to bay. It was only for a moment, however, and then he acquainted himself with his surroundings in a quick, comprehensive glance. On one side of him was the hedge, on the other a line of tall kenari-trees.

Vaulting the hedge, he ran silently and swiftly in its shadow, hugging the ground like a fox in the brush. Suddenly and without warning he crashed full-tilt into a man coming from the opposite direction, caught him low, just beneath the ribs. The man crashed back into the hedge with an explosive gasp.

Ahead were white pickets, the friendly white pickets that enclosed Captain Rouse's grounds. He dashed toward them, but he was too late. Out of a ma.s.s of shrubbery a short, squat figure leaped at him. There was the flash of a knife. Peter Gross had no chance to grapple with his a.s.sailant. He dropped like a log, an old sailor's trick, and the short, squat figure fell over him. He had an instant glimpse of a yellow face, fiendish in its malignancy, of a flying queue, of fingers that groped futilely, then he rose.

At the same instant a cat-like something sprang on him from behind, twisted its legs around his body, and fastened its talons into his throat. The impact staggered him, but as he found his footing he tore the claw-like fingers loose and shook the creature off. Simultaneously two shadows in front of him materialized into Chinamen with gleaming knives. As they leaped at him a red-hot iron seared his right forearm and a bolt of lightning numbed his left shoulder.

A sound like a hoa.r.s.e, dry cackle came from Peter Gross's throat. His long arms shot out and each of his huge hands caught one of his a.s.sailants by the throat. Bringing their heads together with a sound like breaking egg-sh.e.l.ls, he tossed them aside.

Before he could turn to flee a dozen shadowy forms semi-circled about him. The starlight dimly revealed gaunt, yellow faces and glaring eyes, the eyes of a wolf-pack. The circle began to narrow. Knives glittered.

But none of the crouching forms dared venture within reach of the gorilla arms.

Then the lion arose in Peter Gross. Beside him was an ornamental iron flower-pot. Stooping quickly, he seized it and lifted it high above his head. They shrank from him, those crouching forms, with shrill pipings of alarm, but it was too late. He hurled it at the foremost. It caught two of them and bowled them over like ninepins. Then he leaped at the others. His mighty right caught one under the chin and laid him flat.

His left dove into the pit of another's stomach. The unfortunate Chinaman collapsed like a sack of grain.

They ringed him round. A sharp, burning sensation swept across his back--it was the slash of a knife. A blade sank into the fleshy part of his throat, and he tore it impatiently away. He struck out savagely into the densely packed ma.s.s of humanity and a primitive cave-man surge of joy thrilled him at the impact of his fists against human flesh and bone.

But the fight was too unequal. Blood started from a dozen cuts; it seemed to him he was afire within and without. His blows began to lack power and a film came over his eyes, but he struck out the more savagely, furious at his own weakness. The darkness thickened. The figures before him, beside him, behind him, became more confused. Two and three heads bobbed where he thought there was only one. His blows went wild. The jackals were pulling the lion down.

As he pulled himself together for a last desperate effort to plough through to the security of Rouse's home, the sharp crack of a revolver sounded in his ear. At the same instant the lawn leaped into a blinding light, a light in which the gory figures of his a.s.sailants stood out in dazed and uncertain relief. The acrid fumes of gunpowder filled his nostrils.

Darting toward the hedges like rats scurrying to their holes, the Chinamen sought cover. Peter Gross hazily saw two men, white men, each of them carrying a flash-light and a pistol, vault the pickets. A third followed, swinging a lantern and bellowing for the "_wacht_" (police).

It was Roaring Rory.

"Are you hurt?" the foremost asked as he approached.

"Not bad, I guess," Peter Gross replied thickly. He lifted his hand to his forehead in a dazed, uncertain way and looked stupidly at the blood that gushed over it. A cleft seemed to open at his feet. He felt himself sinking--down, down, down to the very foundations of the world. Dimly he heard the cry:

"Quick, Paddy, lend a hand."

Then came oblivion.